


Hung parliament

by sullenhearts



Category: The Libertines
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:15:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullenhearts/pseuds/sullenhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little thing re the UK elections</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hung parliament

"Ah, fuck," Peter says, frowning at his phone.

"What's up?" Carl asks.

"Cameron's on course to get a majority."

"The election? No way."

"No, another David Cameron that wants to fuck up the country of yer birth, son."

"Fuck off." Carl moves next to Peter - he smells like mango juice and washing powder, says Carl's brain, without him thinking about it - to look at his phone. 

Surprising, the iPhone, Carl thought when he first saw the bright white thing in Peter's hands. It's not him at all. Carl can remember the first mobile phone they had - fucking brick type thing on BT Cellnet. Must've been 1999 or something. Peter's parents had given him it, so he could keep in touch with them. It was never charged and it fell into some wet plaster at some point, but it worked when it needed to. Carl had assumed Peter would feel the same about a smartphone as he did - a necessary evil - but no, Peter loves it. He's even got fucking Pinterest on it. 

He's got a news app open, and sure enough, the headline reads "Cameron to lead shock majority government".

"They said hung parliament," Carl says. "They said it'd happen like it did last time, no overall majority for anyone so someone would have to cobble something together." He feels dumbfounded. 

"They were wrong." Peter chews his lip. A tiny bead of blood appears. "Exit polls last night said this, and now that cunt's got a fucking lead of 312 seats."

Carl does a quick calculation in his head of what time it is in Britain. Early Friday morning. "How many have said?"

"How many constituencies?" 

Carl nods.

"Six hundred."

"Fuck."

"He only needs, what, to 326?"

"Dunno," Carl says. "Honestly, you're the politics one."

"Mmm." Peter rubs a shy hand across his head. "That's the majority. I mean Sinn Fein never turn up, so it's really only 323, so.... looks like he's won."

"I'm sure you're right." Carl moves back over to his guitar. 

"Fuck. _Fuck_. Another bloody reason I don't want to live there anymore."

"Some of us have to," Carl says,a plectrum between his teeth. It comes out nastier than he means it to.

Peter hears it, too. His eyelids flutter and he looks down at the sheaf of lyrics they've been working on. 

Carl plays extra carefully to make up for it.

*

John and Gary come in a while later, laughing . Gary claps Carl on the back on his way to the drums.

"Oh," Peter says. "Tory government back home, lads."

"Nah," Gary says, misunderstanding. "They'll be arguing for weeks, like last time."

Peter shakes his head. "They've won, Gaz. LibDems totally wiped out, Ed Balls lost his seat in Leeds."

Gary looks at him. He looks at Gary. 

"It can't be," Gary says. "Hung parliament, they said. Cameron's supposed to be graceful in defeat and let the others cobble together some kind of government."

Peter just passes his phone across.

" _Fuck_ ," Gary says emphatically. "Fucking fuck."

"You said it," Peter says. He takes the phone back and puts it in his pocket. He pauses, for just a second or two, as if he's about to say something. But then he rifles the sheets of paper and the moment's passed.

*

Later still, they're about to eat. Peter checks his phone again.

"Cameron's triumphant return to Downing Street," he reads. "Ugh. He's asked the Queen if he can form a government."

"It's outdated, that, innit?" Carl muses. "Ridiculous really. She can't say no."

"She bloody should've this time. 'Sorry Mr Spadeface, one wouldn't trust you to run a wendy house, so no you may not form a government'."

"You might be being a bit harsh." Carl picks up a plate and joins the queue for the buffet, Peter right behind him. 

They sit at an 8 seater table. John sits the other side of Carl, and then Gary sits down with Josh on the other side of Peter. 

"Good grub tonight," Gary says, and raises his glass of Coke in mock-salute to the fact.

"Tis," Carl agrees, and digs in to a pile of fried calamari.

"You did vote, didn't you Carlos?" Peter asks a few minutes later. 

He's the only person in the world who regularly calls Carl Carlos, and it's still weird, it still sounds weird that it's coming from right next to him, that soft and hopeful voice that Carl would know anywhere, in a crowd of a million he'd know Peter's voice. 

"Carlos?" Peter says again, slightly more worriedly, when Carl doesn't answer.

"Course I voted," he says. "Had a postal one sent specially, since I was leaving the country."

"Oh, good," Peter says, looking slightly mollified.

Carl spears a spring roll.

"Carlos?" Peter says again. "You did vote for the right party, didn't you?"

"Yes, you fucking anarchist, I voted for the right party."

"Not really an anarchist, I mean - Labour are pretty shit at the moment, I do know that, but... What are your other choices? Really?"

"No one," Gary chimes in. "Have to just make the best of it and go with Labour."

"They're just not like they used to be," Peter sighs. "Party of the working man and woman, they were, party of the trade union."

"Yeah, yeah," Carl says. "Yer grandad was a striking miner and all that."

"My grandad _was_ a striking miner." 

"My dad worked in a factory, Pete. Didn't mean he didn't vote Tory."

"Least said about _that_ the better..."

"Mmm," Carl mutters non-commitally. 

There's a silence. Carl considers his forkful of rice and prawn.

John clears his throat; a non-confrontational noise if Carl ever heard one. "Not going to ask me how I went?" he asks Peter.

"Oh, fuck," Carl mumbles. 

Peter looks at John with big eyes for a long, long moment. "Well," he says eventually, politely. "I wasn't sure even _if_ you'd vote, what with living in Sweden now."

"Balls," John says. "You think I vote Tory."

Peter says nothing, ominously.

"Cheers very much," John says. 

"Come on," Peter says. "You are quite posh."

Gary snorts, then tries to look like he's not laughing. 

"So all posh people vote Tory?"

"I.... No," Peter starts. "I'm not saying that."

"Kind of are."

"Yeah, well, posh boys run the world - think this result shows that quite nicely, actually."

"And I'm exactly the same?" 

"No - course not." Peter chews his lip. "You're nice, really."

"Effusive praise," John says sarcastically, and then all goes silent. 

For ages.

Carl swallows food that now tastes like rubber. Goddamnit, why can't they just get on? This whole thing is such a fucking _bad idea_ : Peter and John and Gary and Carl, back together? It's a fucking joke. A _joke_. 

"Look," Peter starts, but at the same time John says,

"I went Green."

"Oh," Peter says. He blinks. "Well done you."

"Yeah," John says with feeling. "I know people like you might not like it, but-"

"Oi, hey," Peter says. "No, I think that's a fair enough vote, yeah."

"Good."

Peter nods. "Did you go with them last time, too?"

"Peter..." Carl starts.

"No," John says, taking a bite of food. 

"Right," Peter says.

"I'm the knob that voted Lib Dem," John says, with a flash of a grin that's so fast Carl isn't sure it was really there. "Thought we could give 'em a go. It didn't turn out well."

Peter laughs. "Too true, me old china. Gawd, I really thought you'd have been a true blue."

John shakes his head. "Never even voted before last time."

"What?" Now Carl's incensed. "You're thirty-three years old and you've only voted twice in your whole _life_?"

"I''m thirty-four," John says. "Apart from anything."

"Yeah," Peter says teasingly. "He's thirty-four, Biggles."

"My point stands," Carl says, but they're all too busy laughing at him now. "Fuck off," he says, and glowers at his near-empty plate. 

"Poor love," Peter says, mussing Carl's hair.

"'K off," Carl says again, but he doesn't pull away.

"Glad you voted these last two, yeah?" Peter says to John. "It might not have changed anything but it's better than not."

"Totally agree," John says. "Thanks."

"Thank god for that," Gary says, standing up with his plate to go back to the buffet. "I thought we were gonna have to explain to the NME that we split up again over Cameron's government."

"It'd be front page news!" Peter declares, and then dips his head, looking at Carl from under his lashes.


End file.
